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Pollution prevention summaries

The U.S. EPA provides Pollution Prevention (P2) grant funds to states and tribal government entities to deliver technical assistance and encourage businesses to adopt environmental strategies and solutions that significantly reduce or eliminate waste from the source.

Grant summaries

2011

2011 Curriculum and composites

In 2011, U.S. EPA Region 5 awarded a $70,000 grant to MPCA, matched by $70,000 in State funds for a total of $140,000 to support two pollution prevention projects. These projects focused on facilitating green chemistry curriculum development with Minnesota post-secondary institutions and evaluating the use of styrene-free resins by the Minnesota composites industry sector. This summary covers activities during the October 1, 2011 – September 30, 2012 reporting period.

Curriculum

Four grants were awarded to Minnesota post-secondary institutions, St. Catherine’s University, University of Minnesota-Duluth, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and Winona State University for green chemistry curriculum development projects. For more information about these projects, see MPCA's green chemistry and design project webpage.

Composites

MPCA partnered with the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP) at the University of Minnesota evaluation of operational requirements and performance of a styrene free resin system for the Minnesota Fiber Reinforced Plastics (FRP) manufacturing sector. Read more about this case study.

2010

In 2010, U.S. EPA Region 5 awarded an $85,794 grant to MPCA, matched by $85,794 in State funds for a total of $171,588 to support three pollution prevention projects. These projects focused on continuing development of a green chemistry and design initiative for Minnesota, facilitating green chemistry and design demonstration projects with Minnesota manufacturers and follow-up survey work with participants in the workshops for green remodeling. This summary covers activities during the October 1, 2010 – September 30, 2012 reporting period.

2009

2009 Green building, green chemistry, and non-hospital facilities

In 2009, U.S. EPA Region 5 awarded $81,383 to the MPCA, matched by $81,383 in State funds for a total of $162,766 to support three pollution prevention projects.These projects focused on exploring a green chemistry and design initiative for Minnesota, developing and conducting workshops for green remodeling, and outreach to non-hospital facilities. This summary covers activities during the October 1, 2009 – September 30, 2010 reporting period.

Green building workshops

The MPCA collaborated with faculty from the University of Minnesota's Cold Climate Housing Program and the Center for Sustainable Building Research to develop an 8-hour “smart remodeling” training curriculum for remodeling professionals on building performance and building science and their particular application to the green remodeling process. For more information, see the Smart Remodeling curriculum.

Green chemistry

Green chemistry principles include the avoided use of toxic pollutants and hazardous substances, the substitution of less-toxic raw materials, and the reformulation or redesign of products. With the grant, the MPCA worked to engage potential stakeholders to establish a Green Chemistry and Design initiative for Minnesota. Learn how this initiative developed.

Non-hospital facilities

Integrating pollution prevention practices into the hazardous waste regulatory framework can create incentives for medical clinics, dental offices, long-term care facilities, pharmacies and veterinary clinics to implement cost-cutting pollution prevention practices. Approximately 9,000 non-hospital facilities operate in Minnesota. As this project began, most were believed to be out of compliance with hazardous waste regulations, particularly pharmaceutical waste management. To bring these facilities into compliance and encourage adoption of pollution prevention practices, MPCA worked with the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP) to develop tools to educate and assist these facilities.

Regulatory information and pollution prevention guidance was developed for each facility type. These resources are available from MnTAP and can be printed as fact sheets. For the reporting period, MnTap attracted 12,283 page views by 5,170 unique visitors for these resources.